The aam aadmi's actor - Balraj Sahni reflected the people's angst

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THE AAM AADMI’S ACTOR

Editorial
The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Saturday, May 11, 2013

Balraj Sahni reflected the people’s angst

Those who have watched Do Bigha Zamin cannot in their
life-time forget the heart-wrenching performance of
Balraj Sahni. And those who haven't will not know what
acting is. One of the finest films ever to come out of
the Hindi film stable, it has become a benchmark as much
for the sensitive direction by Bimal Roy as for Sahni's
portrayal of a man who oscillated between hope and
despair, finally ending up in much the way many of his
countrymen do — in misery after being short-changed by a
system that is supposed to take care of them. His was the
story of the quintessential aam aadmi, whose sufferings
today do not seem to be any less acute than they were 60
years ago which Sahni projected. That makes the actor and
his performance timeless. It's a pity that we needed an
occasion like his birth centenary to wake up to the
greatness of the artiste. There can only be a handful of
actors in mainstream Hindi films who can aspire to be in
his league, and yet we are besotted more with stars that
are non-actors. But for the concerted efforts of his
friends, admirers and family members, Sahni's birth
centenary would have passed unnoticed. The aam aadmi may
have become a fashionable name today, but Sahni was the
original common man, not just in the characters he
portrayed on the screen but in his real life as well. His
desperation in Do Bigha Zamin was matched by his anguish
in Kabuliwallah, his middle-aged romantic cheekiness in
Waqt, his pathos in Garam Hawa and his large-heartedness
in Ek Phool Do Mali. In all of these roles, it became
difficult to separate the man from his character. Sahni
was not one of those actors whose commitment to the
profession began with arrival on the sets, performance
and pack-up. He did not just enact the role; nor did he
merely live it. He went further, engaging with society
and its problems through a variety of means including
theatre. The sensitivities which he displayed on the
screen with such telling impact were not a put-on, but
they were intrinsic to him as a human being.

But for all his volcanic talent, Balraj Sahni had one
failing: He did not know the art of self-promotion.
Lesser actors of his time raced ahead of him in money and
recognition because they marketed themselves
aggressively. He got slotted as a ‘character actor' at a
time when character actors were only appendages to the
star cast. Yet, in many instances, he outshone the heroes
and the heroines by his masterly performance. Anywhere
else in the world, his calibre would have put him at par
with the best actors of the world and made him a
household name. But here in Bollywood, he languished in a
system which measured — and still measures — the worth of
an artiste by the glamour quotient the actor enjoys. The
system simply fails to realise that the aam aadmi has
never been, and will never be, glamorous. Balraj Sahni
would have been just one among the fleeting glitzy had he
been consumed by stardom.

More at:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/the-aam-aadmis-actor.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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